The Aeronaut's Crew
by pyrrhicvictoly
Summary: Two slaves and a mechanical bird plot to free themselves from the Airship Mindfang. (OR, that trollstuck steampunk!Alternia AU you never knew you wanted.)


**A/N: This was originally posted on AO3 as part of a series of "DaveKat AUs" that I wrote as treats for Giftstuck 2014. SOME FICS FROM THE COLLECTION ARE AO3 ONLY. Site rules and such. Check them out there if you like this one. :)**

* * *

Karkat's footsteps crunch over the yellowing grass on the hill. Across the dying meadow, at the very edges of the already isolated brownblood community, lies a simple cliffside hut. No neighbors for miles, the scent of the sea breeze drifts and stings, icy fingers scratching his nose and cheeks even shadowed as they are under the thick gray cloak.

His hands are cupped around a small mechanical bird. Wings that once gleamed a copper-tinted gold are now dulled, discolored, pockmarked with sweeps of improper care.

"Is that it?" Karkat asks in whispers. He lifts the bird cradled in his palms so that his voice will reach before it's carried away by the whipping wind. "The Puppeteer's hive, we made it? He'll fix you?"

There's a twitch, a small, shrill grinding of joints before the bird falls back into its previous position, lying like the dead. In a soft, soft voice like rusted bells, it chirps but once. He can no longer speak.

Sensing the new urgency of the situation, Karkat kicks off in a run. "Hold on, Dave, just a little longer."

Dave attempts another chirp; it comes out a rattle.

"Hold on—!"

* * *

Pirates. It _had_ to be pirates. Just when he thought his life couldn't get any worse.

Karkat Vantas had been aware of his plight as a mutant since before first pupation. Even as a grub, he knew to hide his bright red body. Red was the color of sickness, of danger. Inflamed horns and blinded eyes turned red. The color brought out the fearful instincts of trolls and made the weak-minded ones lose their cool, made them feel compelled to cull the cancer before it could take root and infect others with whatever sickness it carried.

So he hid because he knew the only fates available to mutants were life in slavery or freedom in death. In his case, with trollish violent instincts being the way they are, death was the most likely option. And he was almost proud of that, in a way. At least he would get to keep his dignity if he was ever found out, or so he thought.

But then _pirates_. Goddamn lususfucking _pirates _had to enter the picture. It was almost an honor that he'd been captured by one of the most feared scourges of the skies, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. Almost, because it was still an insult that, after she had razed his town, she smirked at him in her very condescending, very adult way and said, "Well aren't you a cute wiggler? I think I'll keep you around."

Karkat would have spat invectives at her, but in that instant he felt the Marquise's cold, spidery fingers sink into his mind and still his tongue.

Slavery was the very last thing on Karkat's "to do" list, even after "fuck an Imperial drone", but once it happened, his natural pragmatism kicked in and prevented him from acting up too rashly. There was no point in dying for naught. Perhaps if he continued to live, his life would eventually improve, and besides, the Marquise wasn't so bad a mistress. Her daughter was a huge bitch who liked to tease the slaves, but life aboard the Airship Mindfang wasn't wholly intolerable.

Karkat swabbed the deck and helped fix little things here and there. He helped in the kitchens when they were short on hands, helped the mechanics fetch tools and even learned a bit of engineering along the way. Mindfang's crew knew he was a mutant – some were disgusted, some were alarmed – but none of them wanted to deal with her wrath should her toy mutie come to a bad end.

In the beginning his only friend was Tavros, another mutant slave with whom Karkat was quartered because they were the same age. (The Marquise didn't want any adult slaves getting ideas about taking liberties with her little pets.) Tavros had great big glittering wings that he'd never even tried to use. He'd gained them during second pupation when he was already a slave, and on top of that he couldn't even walk without a limp! He'd put up too much of a fight when they'd come to capture him, pitting his psychics against the Marquise's daughter's. He'd sent beasts charging her way to distract her from taking hold of his mind, causing her to take "drastic measures" once she'd finally succeeded. They broke his legs, and now he was trapped in this dingy galley cabin, never to fly on his own merits.

Among the slaves it was just the two of them who still had wigglerish dreams of freedom. The others had long since given up. Some took adult names as boring as "The Oarsman". So it was the two of them who clung to each other in the sleeping hours, whispering of plans and what-ifs. (And sometimes, when they couldn't hold it in anymore and allowed themselves to cry, they spoke of their lusii and long lost hives.)

The Marquise had a thing for oddities. Rumors said it was partly because her lover in days of yore had been a mutant. The Marquise knew of the rumors and did nothing to dispel them. If she caught any of those whisperings, she merely smiled coyly, knowingly, in the direction of the gossipers.

Even quieter rumors, of the type only Bertha the cook would dare speak since she had been with the Marquise over a century and could get away with such things by claiming "veteran benefits", said that one of the Marquise's slaves was the son of her former lover. She'd tested him and, finding him not to be her own blood, kept him in the galley with the others in her collection of oddities.

Karkat had a feeling the Marquise's almost-son was Tavros. It was the only reason Bertha would mention such a thing to him. As he watched Tavros and the Marquise's interactions, he became sure of it. She would be almost tender to him one moment, and then harsher on him than any other slave. He was being punished for the circumstances of his birth.

No use being sad about it, though. That was just their lot in life, being mutant lowbloods. They had to push away their emotions if they wanted to stay sane.

Two became three when the Airship Mindfang raided an Imperial cargo ship. Mindfang was swifter than her prey, though no less heavily armed. She made off with the cargo, set the enemy ship ablaze and said, "Tch. Not even a challenge. Times like these make me miss Dualscar."

"Those were the days, aye, mistress?"

"Yeah. We live in booooooooring times!"

Karkat overheard this conversation as he and the other slaves were sorting out their new acquisitions. He was paying more attention to eavesdropping than he was to unpacking, so he gasped when he felt the nip on his finger.

Mindfang with her razor-sharp instincts immediately turned his way and spotted the treasure he was carrying. It was a golden bird cage, and within it, a golden bird. Its joints meticulously crafted, it hopped and flapped as smoothly as its living counterpart.

"Ho, that's an interesting one! What say you sing for me, pretty bird?"

The bird opened its beak and sang in a melodic voice that was unexpectedly troll-like. "Tweet tweet, caw caw. Up~ yours~ spider-bitch~!"

The coldness that crept into the Marquise's seven-pupiled eye was the only warning before she snatched the cage out of Karkat's hands, quicksilver fast. "How sweet," she cooed with venom-laced voice, "that this little automaton has just offered itself to be smelted down. I could use a new dagger hilt."

"Uh, um! M-marquise, mistress, may I k-keep him?"

Tavros kept his head bowed; his wings twitched miserably at his back. Why had he spoken out of turn? Karkat wanted to shush him as soon as he'd spoken aloud, but all he could do in the end was bite his own lips and hope for the best of the Marquise's mercurial moods.

Mindfang's fierce gaze bored into her quivering slave for seconds bordering on eternity. Finally, she turned away with a bored look on her face. She tossed the caged bird back to Karkat, who stumbled as he caught it.

"Hmph. Melt down the cage," she said, gesturing with a flick of her long-fingered hand. "You can keep the bird, but if it insults me again, it'll be _brass tacks_."

The two young slaves rushed to move the little mouthy bird into their cabin, and there it stayed with them from then on. The bird's name was Dave, and he had been the finest creation of a world-renowned tinkerer. He was being sent as a gift to a seadweller royal, he said. Karkat found it hard to believe that even the most talented tinkerer in the empire could produce a creature with such a troll-like mind. The body, yes, that was as realistic as any bird he had ever seen, but a body is a simple thing when compared to the mind.

He kept those questions to himself. In the sleeping hours, they were three: Tavros and Karkat clinging together on their dingy cot, no sopor to be found anywhere, and little Dave snuggled on top of them. In the waking hours, Dave sat on their shoulders or their heads as they went about their chores, and as the airship sailed over the skies of Alternia. Dave couldn't fly very far without tiring, but it was enough for him to be a helpful eye from above for certain chores. The Marquise was content with their performance, so all was well.

Dave, however, was just the incentive the slaves needed to start getting serious about their plans for escape. They were both nearing full adult size; it wasn't like they were still the helpless wigglers who'd been snatched up in the Marquise's raids. Both were strong and agile from their sweeps of labor, even Tavros with his limp.

It started with Dave whispering into Tavros' ears like a rapping fairy godfather. When Dave was on Tavros' shoulders, sometimes Karkat would overhear snippets of things like, "Have confidence in yourself, bro" or "Flying is the shit. It is off the hook. Your shit and your hook are still together? Man, that's just wrong. Shit and the hook broke up so long ago, you don't even know."

"What is, uh, the point of that metaphor?"

"Gotta let go, gotta let shit fly so it can hit the fan."

"That, doesn't help."

"I mean we've got wings. You've gotta fly, like me. I'll even teach you how."

The change in Tavros wasn't immediately noticeable, but he began to hold himself up higher. It was a good change. Good also that he knew to pretend to hunch back down whenever the Marquise or her daughter passed by.

To Karkat, they quipped and insulted each other, broke each other down to bring each other back up. Karkat, far from being a good-natured troll like Tavros, was shrewd and cynical. He appreciated Dave's company, but it was hard to believe anything the bird said. There was no way Dave was a simple automaton. _Shenanigans _were involved.

And why would Dave help them? What was there to gain by helping mutant slaves? If he were pragmatic in any way, he would try to sweet talk the Marquise instead. But Dave's friendship remained steadfast. He made not a sound in her presence, for if he couldn't say anything nice, he wouldn't say anything at all.

A personality this strong could not belong to a mere machine. Karkat's suspicions were strengthened when, while on kitchen duty, he cut himself peeling tubers. Karkat hissed at the sudden pain and, wigglerhood instincts kicking in, quickly ripped a strip of cloth from the hem of his worn shirt to wrap his bleeding finger. Dave had seen, though, and stared disconcertingly at the bandaged wound. The bird then hopped down the length of Karkat's arm and onto his injured hand. Dave used his beak to tuck the ends of the bandage more securely.

Karkat gasped at the unexpected tenderness. "What was that about?" he asked once Dave was finished.

"It's nothing."

"It's definitely something."

"Shut up, man. I've got a soft spot for mutants, okay? Let's just leave it at that."

The bird could not be coaxed into saying more. This was fine for the moment since Karkat's mind was focused on more pressing matters, such as their impending escape. While his talks with Tavros in the past were merely dreams, now they took on a more urgent tone. Tavros began to seek out the company of the Marquise's daughter, though whether it was to gather intel or to try to win her over to their side, Karkat didn't know and felt it wasn't his place to ask.

Having been aboard the vessel for so long, they knew the layout inside and out. Problem was, so did their captors, and they also had _mind control_ on their side. "If only…" Karkat would think. If only they weren't so susceptible to mind control… If only they could slip away silently into a crowded city… If only they could create so much chaos that the Marquise wouldn't think to look for them until they were well away…

Karkat imagined that all three of them played the same scenarios through their minds, but it was Tavros who came to them with an ultimatum. He was, unlike his usual self, possessed of a strange calm. There was nearly none of the jittery countenance that Karkat had come to expect from Tavros when he approached them that fateful day.

The airship's blinds were shuttered against the harsh sunlight as they continued to sail across the desert in daytime. Karkat, with Dave in his lap, had been dozing on their shared cot when the cabin door opened and gently closed.

"Are you awake?"

"What is it?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"We're getting out of here. Tomorrow. I have a plan."

And Karkat listened, while Dave preened their hair, of how Tavros would secure for them flying mounts – those small, steam-powered vehicles that the corsairs used to maneuver around larger vessels in flight. They were light and swift, much swifter than any airship, though each could seat only one troll or two in a dire pinch.

"No. We escape _together_."

"It has to be me!" Tavros hissed. "Vriska's letting me do checks on the mounts while Gurrig is sick. We'll never have an opportunity as good as this one, not for a long, long time. And I don't know about you but I am _sick _and _tired _of being a slave. I don't know how much longer I can pretend to be cowed! If we wait, it gives them more opportunities to rape our minds and find out what we've been planning. We've been too lucky not to have had this done to us already, but that's only because they think we're weak and scared. Karkat, I'm afraid I'll slip up if we wait any longer. It _has _to be now."

Tavros was so worked up that for once in his life he didn't stutter. What could Karkat do but agree? (Especially when he, too, chafed under chains, yearning for freedom.) He wasn't told much more about the distraction that would come. He wasn't told much other than "there will be explosions" and "don't look back".

And Tavros' last words as they fell asleep the day before everything changed: "Don't worry about me, I can fly."

They didn't see him when the moons rose, so they waited by their assigned post.

"I hate it, too," Dave said. The mechanical bird perched on Karkat's shoulder ruffled his metal feathers with a bell-like tinkling. Dave shifted from foot to foot as he settled down more comfortably in the crook of Karkat's neck.

"But we have no choice, is that what you're going to say?"

"Nah, I've got plenty of choices. S'not me who'll be the mutant on the run."

"Oh, yeah, like a tiny tin sparrow could get far on his own."

"_Excuse you_, this fine bomb-ass chassis is 100% high quality alpha-beta brass, baby. Fucking pure Muntz metal here, the real deal."

"And that mouth of yours would get you crushed under a boot regardless, assuming you didn't get captured by a mad scientist for study."

"Touché."

Their banter cut off prematurely when an ominous shadow descended over the airship. Silence settled over them like a shroud but for the clock's tick. Tock. And. Then.

BOOM!

The first of many explosions rocked the Mindfang, followed by near-crazed cackling. Karkat rushed up to the deck in time to see Mindfang's crew scurrying about, trying to put out the fire. _Dragon fire._

Hovering above the airship was a dragon lusus, its pearlescent scales tinged green and pink in the moonlight.

"_Pyralspite_," the Marquise spat. "How?"

"That's for my mom, you jerk!" A slim troll rode on the dragon's back, dwarfed many times over by her monstrous lusus. Together they swooped and dived, the dragon spitting fire every chance it got.

The Marquise retaliated by commanding her crew to shoot it down with their hand-cannons. The dragon was nimble for its size, but surely it couldn't dodge every attack aimed at its back?

Not so. It did indeed dodge every attack. The girl troll, under the dragon's psychic protection, was immune to mind control. But even so, there was no way she could see, from her vantage point, each shot aimed in her lusus' direction. _Someone else_ was helping her control the dragon.

Karkat, with Dave tucked into his breast pocket, took advantage of the confusion to run across the deck to the smoldering remains of the flying mounts. There remained, in the furthest corners, few of the winged vehicles that looked to be in good condition. One had its ignition lock severed, and this Karkat assumed to be Tavros' work.

He hopped onto the mount and cranked the ignition so it sputtered to life. Dave whooped from his pocket as they launched, and this was met with a whoop from behind them, amidst the chaos. Karkat, despite having been told not to, turned his head around to see Tavros diving off the deck of the Mindfang in a straight plummet, cannons aimed at him from above.

For a moment, his bloodpusher stopped, but then Tavros spread his wings and took flight for the very first time. He flew in the opposite direction with a dragon at his back and shielding his mind, the slowly sinking Airship Mindfang still giving chase.

"Fuck, that's badass," Dave said.

Karkat, heart thumping, adrenaline winding down, knew that he was powerless to help. He had no words, so he pressed the mount onward until it could go no further.

It sputtered to a stop at the edge of an unfamiliar desert town. Karkat's eyes had filled in fully, a bright unmistakable crimson. He couldn't hide as a rustblood anymore, so his first order of business was to obtain a thick gray cloak with a hood deep enough to shadow most of his features.

It was nearing dawn as he hastily completed this transaction with double-stolen galleons, and he was glad of it. It was a sun cloak, meant for traversing the wastelands in the daytime, and it was just enough to protect him as he curled inside it to sleep.

Dave kept watch for zombies.

Tavros' loss was a huge blow to the both of them. They didn't talk much about their friend and what ill fates he might have met, but for a while that was all they thought of, so they didn't talk much at all.

Seasons they passed in this manner, the bird and the troll, wandering high and low, always careful not to approach others. Karkat worked when he could; Dave performed. Karkat stole when he couldn't; Dave distracted his marks so he could do the deed. Through cities, plains and deserts they walked, growing closer with each step.

"If you were a troll, would we be moirails?"

"If you were a bird, would we have a little love nest made of steel wool? Yo Karkat incubate our Faberge eggs while I flap off to be the grubloaf winner of this charming avian family."

"Fuck that. _I_ am the leader of this operation, and so _I_ would be the grubloaf winner in any given scenario. The eggs came out of your shiny metal cloaca, you incubate them!"

Sweeps they passed in this manner, in this not unpleasant rhythm they had established. Karkat forgot most of his wigglerhood dreams; forgot, almost, the pain of losing his lusus. He'd had his second pupation right before his capture, but only now did he finally feel as if he'd grown into his adult skin.

He was… content. It was a feeling he never thought he'd have. On some nights it was almost happiness, especially with Dave by his side, when they would sit to watch the moons rise or set and banter endlessly about everything and nothing all at once. The fact that he was a mutant never left his mind, and he knew this meant he could never properly fill his quadrants. But even that ache was dulled when he thought of spending the rest of his days just like this, wandering and wandering with Dave never more than a heartbeat away. It was a love story of sorts, or would be if they weren't a troll and a bird.

But all good things must come to an end. The old suspicions that Karkat had about Dave, which he had never worked up the courage to pursue, came back to haunt him when he noticed his friend beginning to creak at the joints. No oil could help him; his screws were too delicate to be tampered with normal tools.

"Karkat… Karkat, I'm… I need maintenance. I want to see this journey through with you, I'm not ready to die! We need to find Tavros, we need to… There's so much more we need to do, but I'm breaking, god, it's getting harder to speak!"

"What can I do?!"

"Find him, the Puppeteer. He's the one who made me."

* * *

Karkat pounds on the door with his entire arm. The other clutches Dave to his chest. "Open up! Please, please!"

He stumbles when the hive door is pulled back. When he glances up from beneath his hood, he finds the owner of the hive staring down at him, eyes hidden behind sunblockers. The Puppeteer is large for a lowblood, shoulders broad and nearly highblood-menacing.

"What do you want?" he asks, gruff and to the point.

Karkat, hands shaking and head still carefully lowered, opens his cupped palms before the tinkerer's shielded eyes.

"…Come in," he says.

Dave is taken into the Puppeteer's workshop. Karkat hears nothing of how his friend is faring. He waits on the couch and eats when the Puppeteer comes out for his own break.

"You can take off the cloak, I know you're a mutant. It's fine."

Karkat is given use of the recuperacoon. He sleeps in proper sopor for the first time in ages. It's the most comfortable he can remember being, yet his thoughts dwell on Dave and Dave alone.

Conversation with the Puppeteer is terse, though not hostile. Karkat is a fair bit intimidated by the elder troll even though most of his questions have been answered politely. But when Karkat asks, "How's Dave?" he gets no response. The Puppeteer ducks back into his locked workshop for hours and hours at a time.

The Puppeteer is a master of hiding his emotions. There is never the slightest hint of his thoughts on his face, so it is with dread pooling in his belly that Karkat follows him into the workshop on the night he finally gets the nod.

Moonlight streams in from the open windows. Aided by well-placed lamps, the room is quite brightly lit. Karkat supposes it has to be for the delicate work that is done here. His eyes scan half the room before immediately being drawn to the work table.

"_Dave_?" Karkat feels his breath hitch and tears sting at his eyes as he gazes at the dismantled bird. Brass feathers gleam under the lamp light, each laid out apart. It's _Dave_. He wants to scream! He wants to retch! _He'll tear the Puppeteer apart for this!_

"No," he Puppeteer says. He puts a hand on Karkat's shoulder and guides him to turn to the side.

There lies, on a resting platform, a young troll with his eyes closed and a sopor-soaked rag above his brow. His age is impossible to tell, for while his build is that of an adult, albeit a slim one and most surely lowblooded, his skin is the lighter gray of an adolescent. His features are delicate, almost frail for a troll, but with hints of strength to come in future sweeps. He is pitifully beautiful.

"Dehvid," the Puppeteer says, "my descendant."

Sure enough, their jagged horns are the same. Karkat's rage abates as quickly as it rose. His voice is small. "I don't understand…?"

He falters in his steps, but eventually makes it to sit at Dehvid's side. In low tones, the Puppeteer begins a tale of finding a mutant wiggler whose crow lusus had just died. The wiggler came to his doorstep, fearlessly demanding that his departed lusus be immortalized as one of the Puppeteer's automatons, for he'd heard this particular tinkerer was so skilled – the most skilled in all Alternia! – that he could bring the dead to life with machinery.

He couldn't, of course, for neither Time nor Life were his elements. What was gone was gone, and the told the wiggler such. But he had noticed, during their exchange, that the wiggler had horns the same shape as his own, and bore on his chest the very same symbol that decorated his own belongings as well.

The Puppeteer was a brownblood, but his descendant was a redblooded mutant. How this came to pass, he didn't know and didn't much care. But he looked out for his own, and so the wiggler came to live with him in this very seaside hut. He trained the young troll and passed on much of his martial prowess – anything to ensure that his descendant could protect himself.

But the world is not kind to lowbloods, and to mutants least of all. Once his eyes gained a bit of color, Dehvid was locked away in the hive most days out of fear of discovery. He wore sunblockers when he went out, and was taught to be so quick in a strife that his opponents never had a chance to draw blood. There were so many precautions to take, it wasn't much of a life at all.

The Puppeteer, because he cared, built for Dehvid a little brass sparrow. With a dash of science, a dash of magic, he managed to connect Dehvid's consciousness with his creation. And he sent the bird off on a voyage, to an old seadweller friend far on the other side of Alternia, all so Dehvid could breathe and fly and interact with the world without fear.

He was to spend a sweep there and come swiftly back. When the bird was lost in a pirate attack, the Puppeteer nearly lost hope that his descendant's psyche could be recovered. Still, he kept the body in stasis and had been waiting ever since.

The Puppeteer finishes his story as quietly and impassively as he began it. Karkat is left alone with Dehvid and his own thoughts.

"You asshole… You were a mutant all along, just like me…" Karkat kisses the sleeping troll on the temple.

Dave grins with his eyes still closed. "Aw, shucks, I feel like a princess. But without the sea-tentacles."

There are more kisses, light and chaste, heavy with promise, and most definitely not pale. "If I were a troll," Dave asks, "would we be matesprits?"

"Yes."

* * *

The Puppeteer, when they tell him about their quest to find Tavros, lifts his eyebrows in the mysterious, knowing way some older trolls have. It's always annoying as fuck, but even more so coming from this douchebag because he does it so well. All he says is, "Prepare yourselves for a surprise soon."

A few nights later, when the moons are at their brightest, a shadow falls over the cliffside hut. When Dave and Karkat rush out in alarm, they first see the airship high above, wood and gleaming metal slowly drifting down, and then the silhouette of a winged figure jumping off the deck.

Tavros whoops during freefall and laughs when his wings flare out to soften his landing. He runs (still with a limp) over to greet his old friends, hastily pushing his goggles up to his forehead.

"Hey, I missed you guys! Um, come on up!"

A cackle comes from the airship's deck and dragon-lusus-girl waves to them.

The Puppeteer saunters up behind them as they gape, and he says, smirking, "The Aeronaut's been recruiting young mutants around these parts, freeing slaves and servants, gathering up all the discontented lowbloods. I figured he must've been your friend from the description."

Hand in hand, they run off to join the pirates. Goddamn lususfucking _pirates_.


End file.
